The Purim Brigade

Although most cities celebrate Purim on the fourteenth of Adar, cities like Yerushalayim that were "mukaf chomah" celebrate it on the fifteenth (known in the rest of the world as "Shushan Purim"). So for people living in Yerushalayim, the fourteenth of Adar is just another ordinary day. Some people choose to travel to Bnei Brak or other nearby Purim-celebrating cities for the day (effectively getting two days of Purim), while others just stay home, enjoying the relative peace and quiet (except for the occasional firecracker).

Many bochurim in our yeshiva, however, did something totally different. In what was a first-time-ever occurence, our yeshiva, in conjunction with the orginization "L'chayalim B'ahava", arranged for a busload of our bochurim to travel to an army base in the "Bik'ah" to deliver mishloach manos to the soldiers, and bring them a little bit of Simchas Purim.

We left in the morning, dressed in our Purim costumes, and arrived at "Machaneh Tsha Ma'ot" (Camp Nine Hundred) shortly after noon. The bus parked in an empty lot near the camp, where we worked together to assemble 900 packages of nosh and useful items, to be given out to the soldiers. When we finished, we got back on the bus, and after receiving security clearance, we entered the base itself.

We took the base by storm, taking the soldiers quite by surprise with our singing and dancing. It didn't take long for the simcha to spread to them, however, and they joined us enthusiastically. This scene repeated itself quite a few times as way made our way around the camp. The soldiers were more than happy for the break in their ordinary daily routine, and we were greeted with smiles wherever we went.

Between the various parts of the base we went to, we gave out all 900 mishloach manos packages we brought along, and spent several hours shmoozing and singing with the soldiers. One of the bochurim even managed to get some of the non-religious soldiers to put on tefillin.

We finally left after four o'clock in the afternoon, exhausted but happy. The commanders thanked us profusely for coming, saying that our visit was a tremendous morale booster, and that we could not have come at a better time. We were glad for the opportunity to have a great time while making a tremendous kiddush Hashem.